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EPJ A Topical Collection: Light Clusters in Nuclei and Nuclear Matter: Nuclear Structure and Decay, Heavy Ion Collisions, and Astrophysics

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Published on 02 February 2023

Guest Editors: David Blaschke, Hisashi Horiuchi, Masaaki Kimura, Gerd Röpke and Peter Schuck

Clustering in nuclei and nuclear matter is an interesting aspect which was intensely worked out during the last two decades. It concerns not only exotic nuclei such as Hoyle-like states, but leads to a better description of general aspects of nuclear structure and reactions. In particular, clustering is essential to understand fission and alpha decay, as well as heavy ion collisions from low to highest energies. In astrophysics, the thermodynamic properties of stellar matter below saturation density, transport properties, and the evolution of compact stellar objects are determined by clustering of nuclear matter. Contributions of this emerging field are collected in this Topical Collection.

In Memory of Prof Amit Dutta

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Published on 27 January 2023

It is with great sadness that we learn of the sudden passing of Professor Amit Dutta (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India), member of the Editorial Board of EPJB. An elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru, Prof Dutta was a member of the Physics Department at IIT Kanpur since 2003, having obtained his PhD from Jadavpur University in 2000. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Max-Plank-Institut fur Physik Komplexer Systeme, Dresden and the Institut fur Theoretishe Physik, Universitat Wurzburg, and his research interests were in the fields of quantum phase transitions, non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many body systems and quantum information.

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EPJ Plus Focus Point on Memristive Chaotic Circuits and Systems

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Published on 24 January 2023

Guest Editors: Qiang Lai, Xiao-Wen Zhao & Jacques Kengne

The memristor was theoretically postulated by Chua in 1971 and physically realized by the HP Labs team in 2008. Its unique nonlinear features actively promote the generation of chaos and other interesting dynamical behavior and sets new challenges in applications. This topical issue aims to collect some new ideas, methods, and recent results so as to shed some light on the future research directions concerning the design, analysis, and novel applications of related chaotic systems. Overall it makes a timely and valuable contribution to broadly advancing science and technology using memristors and memristive circuits.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 18 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ D Highlight - Alain Aspect: The physicist who made entanglement an experimental reality

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Published on 23 January 2023

For Einstein and other physicists of his generation, the strongly counter-intuitive features of quantum mechanics were very hard to accept, given that our intuition is based on the classical world around us. This EPJ D Topical Issue examines the discoveries, motivations, and continuing legacy of Alain Aspect: the physicist whose experiments, along with those of John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, have made that quantum entanglement, an essentially non-classical feature, is now also an experimental reality, exploited in science and technology.

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EPJ Plus Highlight - Citizen Science: From the cosmos to the classroom

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Published on 18 January 2023

An extensive network of cosmic ray detectors allows high school students in Italy to contribute to cutting-edge particle physics research

Citizen science projects offer the general public, or segments of that public such as school students, an opportunity to take part in scientific research. The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project in Italy is a cooperation between particle physicists studying cosmic rays and school students, and their teachers, throughout the country.

This has the twin aims of bringing cosmic ray research into schools and setting up a country-wide ‘open laboratory’ of particle detectors. One of the lead researchers from the EEE Project consortium, Silvia Pisano of the Italian Centro Fermi and Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of INFN, Rome, Italy, has summarised the results from about 20 years of this project in a new paper in EPJ Plus.

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EPJ ST issue: Collective behavior of nonlinear dynamical oscillators

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Published on 16 January 2023

This topical issue collects contributions of recent achievements and scientific progress related to the collective behavior of nonlinear dynamical oscillators. The individual papers focus on different questions of present-day interest in this topic.

EPJ Plus Focus Point on Uncertainty Quantification of Modelling and Simulation in Physics and Related Areas: From Theoretical to Computational Techniques

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Published on 16 January 2023

Guest Editors: Juan Carlos Cortés, Tomás Caraballo, Carla M.A. Pinto

The main goal of this topical article collection is to present new advances on theoretical and computational techniques for uncertainty quantification of modelling and simulation in relevant problems appearing in physics sciences. Many important laws in Physics are formulated by means of equations -mainly differential equations- whose input data is set after experimental measurements, therefore containing uncertainties. Apart from this fact, there often are model parameters whose nature is not known deterministically but randomly because of ignorance and inherent complexity of the physical phenomenon under study. This approach motivates the necessity of treating classical equations in Physics by considering uncertainties in their formulations. This approach is currently a cutting-edge topic whose rigorous analysis requires to masterly combine Physics, Probability and Computing, not just to solve exact or numerically the corresponding equations but also to correctly estimate model parameters, perform accurate simulations and interpret the results.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 16 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Focus Point High-Energy Accelerators: Advances, Challenges, and Applications

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Published on 16 January 2023

Guest Editors: R. B. Appleby, A. Bazzani, M. Giovannozzi & E. Levichev

In this Focus point issue we look at the frontiers of beam dynamics in particle accelerators. These machines are unique scientific tools that provide focused high-density beams of sub-atomic particles such as electrons, protons or ions, at energies unparalleled in any other areas of laboratory-based science. They have been applied to vast range of problems in the last century or so, with circular colliders playing a special role in discovering new particles and new physics, with energy and particle collision rates of several orders of magnitude higher than those of pioneer colliders in the early 1960s. This Focus Point issue covers the field of particle beam physics, with a loose classification into the categories of advances in the field, challenges, and broader applications. This includes exciting topics such as non-linear beam dynamics, the Large Hadron Collider, the SuperKEKB, and the Future Circular Collider, the physics that occurs when two beams collide and some papers on the future advances of the field. We hope this issue is both exciting and inspiring for our community, and of interest beyond our community as well.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 16 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ B Topical Issue on Recent developments in the functional renormalization group approach to correlated electron systems

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Published on 13 January 2023

Guest editors: Carsten Honerkamp, Dante Kennes, Volker Meden, Michael Scherer and Ronny Thomale.

This Topical Issue of EPJ B brings together a collection of articles on the recent progress of the application of the functional renormalization group to correlated electron systems.

In condensed-matter physics strong correlations between electrons in materials and devices are responsible for the formation of many intriguing emergent phenomena, including various types of magnetism, (unconventional) superconductivity, Kondo-like effects or interaction-induced topological phases. Theoretical progress in the understanding of correlated electron systems requires the dedicated development of modern and powerful quantum many-body methods. One rather versatile method is the functional renormalization group, which has recently witnessed major methodological advances and extensions. This includes aspects of the renormalization group formulation, increased computer power and enhanced interlinks to ab initio quantum material methods, extensions to novel strongly correlated electronic models, and electronic systems out of equilibrium.

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EPJ ST Highlight - Dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic

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Published on 13 January 2023

The outbreak of COVID-19 changed the human perception of day-to-day life and tested the bounds of medical technology in protecting the welfare of humans. Several approaches and safety measures have been implemented to minimize the countless lives that are being affected. However, public health and educational breaches are evidenced in most countries in which not all citizens have the same opportunities to deal with the pandemic. Therefore, this has led to pervasive consequences, including mental health problems because of the disruption of everyday life routines.

This special issue is a collection of 35 orginal research articles that address the dynamics and applications of COVID-19 through nonlinear dynamics. The articles are organized in five sections, comprising mathematical modeling and epidemics, the dynamics of several waves and transmission, neural network and deep learning related to COVID-19, predictions and estimations related to COVID-19, and detailed analysis on the pandemic and its applications. The various contributions report important, timely, and promising results and provide insight into the spread of the coronavirus and control measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.